The fabulous gadget from Apple is mocking at all the analysts’ predictions having reached another significant milestone – 80 days and 3 million gadgets sold. I wonder whether the company is specifically rounding the sales to make newspaper and Net headlines look even more impressive and catching. A parallel between its sales and the famous cartoon about Phileas Fogg who traveled around the world in 80 days is quite evident. The thing is that Apple’s success is even more impressive as it has not started its iPad sales worldwide. Next month, the company will begin selling the device in nine new countries. So, the overall number of sales will increase even more as according to Steve Jobs, “we (namely workers at Foxconn manufacturing plants) are working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world”.

But the success of the newest Apple’s platform is also stressed by the rate of iPad application development growth. For several months, the amount of apps submitted for the device to the App Store has topped 11,000 titles. It is quite significant and now in terms of the application number the platform is the third in the world after iPhone and Android. But it must be noted that the overall rate of replenishing the App Store with various iPad apps is much greater than those of Android and even iPhone itself.

It seems that the iPad is having quite a band of potential competitors. The queue of other high-tech companies such as Google, HP and Blackberry was followed by e-reader manufacturers which really perceive themselves as its competitors. No doubt, the iPhone really is a competitor for a range of e-books, such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader and Amazon’s Kindle. These companies really consider it infringing its market share and sales volume which is perfectly true. Now they are going to lower their prices to lure customers – Nook e-reader will cost only 9, while Amazon.com set the price of 9.

Will that price falling steam the competition at the e-readers market? No doubt. Will it threaten the iPad? Hardly. Amazon is said to have sold about 3 million Kindles but it took several years to hit the mark not just several months. The Apple’s gadget is not simply a reader but a multimedia player, splendid for movie-streaming and excellent to surf the web or play a game or two.

If we think of 3 million gadgets sold, there are several things that require no further arguments. First of all people love the device much more than almost anybody expected. Secondly, the attractiveness of the gadget is really viral. People who just several months ago claimed they would never ever buy that overpriced e-reader or iPhone (comparisons are really different), are now shamefully admitting they have bought one, as their mother had wanted to have it. What makes people go all crazy about the gadget? A sleek and posh design? A refined functionality? It’s hard to tell but now it is not enough for other companies to deliver a tablet to the market. It should be much better than the Apple’s magic toy.